Telco brand
Amaysim
had a problem: despite the boom in online shopping in Australia, most of its customers still preferred to visit the local 7-Eleven to buy their SIM pack.

Amaysim chief executive and co-founder
Rolf Hansen
says 83 per cent of customers who bought a SIM used the company’s website to research it first but only 29 per cent actually bought the SIM online.

“If consumers choose online over retail that saves you money," says Hansen. “Much as we love and need our retail network, it comes at a higher cost than the credit card costs of people shopping online."

So the company, founded in 2010 as a low-cost mobile service provider, commissioned Galaxy Research to research the behaviour of online shoppers in Australia.

The survey covered 1000 respondents – general members of the community, not specifically Amaysim customers – in June 2013. The findings suggest that six out of 10 Australians between the age of 18 and 64 now shop online at least once a week.

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However, 88 per cent of online shoppers have abandoned an e-commerce transaction because of an unsatisfactory experience. Why?

1. They want it now

Speed of delivery is critical according to nearly two out of three (65 per cent) respondents, with same or next day delivery of online purchases demanded by nearly half (48 per cent). This figure increases to 55 per cent among Generation Y consumers.

One in three (33 per cent) consumers have abandoned an online purchase due to the delivery options not being suitable.

In response, Amaysim has recently launched express delivery in Sydney, including a three-hour delivery option. Based on success in Sydney, Amaysim is rolling this out to Melbourne in August.

2. Your website sucks on their device

For seven out of 10 Australian online shoppers, the ability to shop “anywhere, anytime" is the new normal. Laptops (71 per cent) and PCs (64 per cent) are the most common devices used to research goods and services online, but smartphones (47 per cent) and tablets (39 per cent) are increasingly being used too.

The research found that more than one in 10 (11 per cent) customers have specifically abandoned an online purchase because of compatibility issues with their device. In addition, 32 per cent have abandoned a purchase because the website was not easy to use and 26 per cent because the process of finding what they wanted and paying for it was taking too long.

Amaysim has responded to this trend by developing a mobile-optimised version of its website. Hansen advises doing it in house rather than outsourcing it. “Embrace it as a core capability rather than just another thing you have to do because that’s how you get really good at it," he says.

It’s worth noting that it is not necessarily different customers on different devices. The director of buyer experience at eBay,
Nicolette Maury
, says she is increasingly finding that the same customer will use multiple devices for the same purchase – perhaps browsing jackets on their smartphone on their morning commute, comparison shopping on the desktop computer at work in their lunch hour and then closing the deal on their tablet in their living room that night.

“What we’re focusing a lot on at eBay is that if you browse something on your smartphone then you can see it in your history on another device," Maury says. “This multidevice consumer is twice as valuable to us as someone who only uses one device. We are starting to see a growing proportion of mobile-only users and these consumers tend to be slightly more Gen Y or a lower socio-economic group that doesn’t use a computer at work."

3. They don’t trust your site

Website security was nominated as the most crucial factor by nine out 10 of those surveyed. Baby Boomer shoppers are more likely to think security is crucial, with 97 per cent identifying it as the critical factor. However, security is still an important issue for Gen Y shoppers, with 83 per cent nominating it as critical.

The research found that nearly four out of 10 people (39 per cent) who have abandoned an online purchase did so because they were worried about entering their payment details into a site that did not look safe.

Some 43 per cent of customers have abandoned a purchase because of payment options and fees being unsuitable.

4. You don’t sell what they want

Amaysim’s model is to sell a SIM and network access but for customers to bring their own handset. However, the telco got consistent feedback that consumers wanted the ease of being able to buy a handset from them. The company has now partnered with MobiCity to sell handsets.

“We’re not changing our business model and we’re not taking any inventory risk, it’s fully outsourced to MobiCity," Hansen says. “We’re not doing it to increase revenue, we’re doing it increase convenience to the end user."

5. Your customer service is lousy

Quality telephone customer service is considered paramount by 55 per cent of online shoppers and nearly three out of five (59 per cent) say email support is important. More than four out of five (81 per cent) say they want a quick response, regardless of how they contacted service. Asked which industries were most in need of improvement to their customer service offering, telcos were top with 73 per cent, followed by utilities with 60 per cent and banks with 50 per cent.

Macquarie University’s senior lecturer in business, Dr
Chris Baumann
, says his research, focusing mostly on retail banks, shows that customer service is most important in subscription-based businesses.

“Subscriptions to newspapers, subscriptions to mobile phone providers, subscriptions to banks, are not like the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space because Coke doesn’t know who you are," Baumann says. “Increasing loyalty a little bit doesn’t make much difference but what you want to avoid is what we call the terrorists or the detractors – they have a bad experience and then they tell everyone at the park or the bar, so they are the worst customers to have."

Amaysim’s Hansen says its net promoter score (NPS), which measures the likelihood of a customer to recommend your product or service to someone else, is 58 per cent. The average for the telco industry is in zero or negative territory. While he says Amaysim offers competitive rates, he is not interested in a race to the bottom to compete on price because he believes there are returns from good customer service.

“We consider ourselves the Virgin Airlines of the telco industry – you get a great feeling when you step on board . . . but it’s good value for money and still comparatively cheap compared to Qantas and Delta," Hansen says.

Hansen says investors often ask why Amaysim keeps its customer service in house, despite the potential savings from outsourcing. The company’s response is to make the self-service options good and to resolve more than 80 per cent of contact centre queries on the first call.